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53 thoughts on “Box Score Recap 5-19-2012”

Since we make a practice of commenting on first year big league players – it certainly looks like Freddy Galvis has the makings of a rising star. He has to make consistent contact and draw walks, but it is looking like he has the power to hit 15-18 home runs a year. Combine that with 2-3 WAR defense and, low and behold, you have a potential star. Pretty amazing given that the general expectation was that he would never show any power at all.

It is not hard to see the similar styles of Ruiz and Galvis.They use all fields well and hit the ball where it is pitched using power when they get the right pitch. All this would seem to spell long term success for Galvis. He might become an incredible two hole guy. Some once remarked when I said Ruiz would be a .300 hitter when he came off the DL and had corrected his swing but Galvis seems to have found that swing without all the fuss
Ruiz had to go through. Maybe there is some communication or at least a model for the younger player.
SIDE NOTE Good job to Mayberry for correcting his swing. I still think he does too much junk before he swings but what the hell

Also, really easy to get excited after a guy hits 2HRs in 2 days (I was at the game where Steve Jeltz hit HRs from both sides of the plate!). He could go 2 months without another one. In fact, given his minor league track record, that is not an unreasonable expectation.

I don’t doubt that Freddy Galvis has a ML future ahead of him, but I would still be very hestitant to project (and base any long-term decisions on) Galvis’ ceiling being any more than future solid-regular.

He’s doing overall what a lot of the SABR guys projected at the start of the year, with a little more power. And no one said that that was out of the question either, given his progress last year. His hitting overall is still nothing to write home about, though with his defense the whole package is starting to look pretty good. But, again, most people acknoledged that as at least a possibility before this year. Of course, also let’s remember sample size. Let’s wait until the end of the year befoee making too many conclusions.

Now, it’s true that BEFORE last year most people were more skeptical. But the smarter SABR types (I include myself in that) at least acknowledged that, given age/level, further progress was possible.

He made a great leap forward in 2011. It happens sometimes, especially with younger psospects. No one – SABR or traditional – can predict in advance when those breakthroughs will occur.

Some players are more or less likely to make that leap, though. I’ll resist another jab at Mr. Hewitt here.

I’ve been a big Charlie supporter for how he runs his clubhouse, but I truly have no clue how everyone in baseball can keep calling him such a great hitting mind when the majority of his players can’t utilize even a half decent approach to working counts and getting good pitches to hit.

It wasn’t just the first pitch that looked good. The way I see it, Victorino was thinking the pitcher was going to throw him a get-it-over fastball and that’s exactly what it was. You really can’t get a better pitch than that to hit and at that point you’re not trying to wear the pitcher down, you’re just trying to drive in runs.

He already dominated AA and he’s not doing a terrible job at AAA – he’s just experiencing growing pains. He needs to figure things out at AAA and take it from there. I expect him to have a very good second half. His stuff really isn’t that bad – his fastball is slightly above average (88-93 and sitting at around 90-91) and his change is a plus pitch. There’s no reason he can’t become a very good 5th man in the majors or a quality 6th/7th inning guy.

Needs to cut the HRs which is actually a sign of either below average stuff or command. I think his change is good. It is everything else that is getting hit. He may have average velocity, but the hitters are not missing it.

Everyday I check Mayberry Jr and Galvis batting averages and find it ironic that they are both right around .250 now, while our star SS is hitting .224. Depending on who you are you can flirt with the Mendoza line for a line time as Ibanez proved last year, but if you are under 30, Lord be with you.

In 2008 Galvis had 16 extra base hits in Lakewood all season. In 2009, mostly in Clearwater, Galvis had just 13 extra base hits. In 40 major league games, Galvis has 14 extra base hits already.

You could make an argument that Galvis is the Phillies’ #1 prospect right now. At least for the next week until he officially loses prospect eligibility. I’d like to see the OBP come up, but I’m certainly impressed.

JRod’s splits are very interesting. Lefties don’t hit him well with 13 hits in 17 IP. He has a .53 ERA and their hitting .210. His achilles heal is BBs with 12. It hasn’t hurt him so far with only 1 ER. Righties don’t hit him very well either. They hit him at a .224 clip.

It’s sort of a 4 year deal – the vesting options are not difficult to meet. Let’s give Jimmy 350 ABs before we start to write him off. It just looks like a slow start to me. The problem is that when you are 33, people see a slow start as the beginning of the end. Sometimes it is and sometimes it isn’t. Jeter had a terrible start a few years ago and he’s doing fine. The same thing happened to Dunn last year (his whole year was bad) and Ortiz the year before. And don’t forget Furcal, who looked cooked last year and has done nothing but hit since arriving in St. Louis. I’m not saying Jimmy is still an MVP candidate, but I doubt we’ve seen the end of him.

He’s hitting what now — .224 going into today’s game, where he got no hits and another two Ks? Now 5 BBs and 38 Ks. For the year-to-date, it’s the same crappy numbers he’s always put up. Everyone is the next Mickey Mantle if you are allowed to extrapolate from cherry-picked dozen game intervals. He has these couple-week-long good streaks every season and then regresses to crap. I know it’s tempting to say that if he can perform well for a dozen games in a row, then he has the ability to perform well and just needs to develop consistency, but he just hasn’t ever been able to do that for more than two weeks each year.

With Freddy having success. Hope the team really looks into how they develop guys and when to promote them. There are a few AA guys really starting to play above level. Hope in June they make some promotions. May jrod. And friend Cesar and ruf, and jc. Time to start doing what other teams do. Instead of holding these guys till they are 25 and 26 etc.

“Other teams” being those who, after years of losing, are bereft of talent at the big-league level and thus are forced to rely on prospects at every position? How’s that working out for the Royals this year? Or the Pirates every year?

Where would you have May and Rodriguez pitch? In Halladay and Lee’s places? The Phillies have a 180 million dollar payroll; they’re not just going to toss veterans over for a couple of kids who’ve looked good for six weeks in Reading.

Victorino has no plate discipline . With the bases loaded last night trailing by 2 runs , he swings at the first pitch after the previous batter walked on 4 pitches . The other problem is Charlie in his pre game show says he never gives his players the take sign on the first pitch ? Why not ? If the situation calls for it give the take sign you are paid to manage not just chew gum .

I also think Victorino should only bat right handed, he has a feable swing left handed.

While in the majors but still a prospect of sorts it was really nice to see Diekman bounce back to strike out the side especially Adrian Gonzalez and Middlebrooks. All three were swinging and only 11 pitches used. If he can be half of that the Phils have found a new set up guy to solve some of these bullpen issues.

Just a brutal defensive day for the normally quite good Hernandez at Reading today. Booted two grounders that were right at him and not hoppy at all, and then almost cost Hanzawa a knee with a latish, high throw on a play where he really should have just gone to first. Our old friend Matt Rizzotti play 1B for Rock Cats, getting two walks and still looking bad in the field. The whole Cats team looked bad defensively, which along with a Ruf HR is why we scored so many runs.